Tagged With "Center for Community Resilience"
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A Guide to COVID-19 and Early Childhood Development [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, April 15, 2020 The global response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has changed daily life in many ways for many people. Yet child development has not paused, and supporting children, families, and care providers of all kinds is as important as ever. In this guide, the Center on the Developing Child has gathered a number of resources and recommendations to help you through this challenging time. This guide pulls together...
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Helping Families Stay Regulated during a Pandemic
As our communities struggle to do what is needed to keep people safe and families work to find a new a “normal” while caring for and educating children at home full time – it can be a lot to handle. Child psychologist and trauma expert, Dr. Bruce Perry offered 8 tips for helping children stay regulated in this recent article from Psychology Today . Dr. Perry was also a part of this video resource for parents, Staying sane while Parenting with Shelter-in-Place! For service providers who would...
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How One Connection at CYW’s ACEs Conference Sparked Awareness into Action
Origins offers a number of training and consulting services. We developed The Basics as a half-day session to provide the foundation to support trauma-informed and resilience practices across sectors and industries. The session includes an overview of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, the neurobiology of toxic stress, the impact of social and historical trauma, and the science of resilience. We have tested The Basics with two cross-sector audiences, in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
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What If I Told You?
What if I told you that I was a victim of child sex abuse? As a survivor of child sexual abuse , I have a clear understanding of the importance of addressing stigma and shame as it pertains to sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Victims, especially young children, often do not disclose sexual abuse. Those who are witnesses of child sexual abuse, or who are trusted by survivors enough that they confide in them, are often ill-equipped to handle the responsibility. And, many times, parents...
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Spokane, WA, public health nurses create trauma-sensitive toolkit for parents/caregivers
Public health nurses at Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) developed a 178-page toolkit -- 1*2*3 Care -- for caregivers of children. They define caregivers as parents, g randparents, child care providers, teachers, and others who care...
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Serve and Return: Supporting the Foundation [developingchild.harvard.edu]
From Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, March 11, 2020 What is “serve and return”? What does it mean to have a “responsive relationship” with a child? How do responsive relationships support healthy brain development? And what can parents and caregivers do in their day-to-day lives to build these sorts of relationships? This episode of The Brain Architects podcast addresses all these questions and more! [ Please click here to listen to the podcast and for more resources .]
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Scientists Report Gains in Treating Kids Suffering Chronic Trauma [dailymemphian.com]
By David Waters, Daily Memphian, February 9, 2020 A landmark Memphis clinical trial of neurofeedback therapy shows promising results for adolescents struggling to overcome chronic childhood trauma. In the 2019 trial, scientists measured, recorded and trained the brain waves of nearly three dozen adolescents at Compass Intervention Center in southeast Memphis. The non-invasive therapy, which has been used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in war veterans, was used to treat developmental...
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World Premiere: Stress & Resilience: How Toxic Stress Affects Us, and What We Can Do About It [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, November 13, 2019 When the stress in your life just doesn’t let up, and it feels like you have no support to get through the day—let alone do everything you need to do to be the best parent you can be—it can seem like there’s nothing that can make it better. But there are resources that can help, and this kind of stress—known as “toxic stress”—doesn’t have to define your life. In this video, learn more about what toxic stress is, how it...
Ask the Community
ACES/Resilience Surveys w/Parents
Hello all, I work at an Early Learning Center and we will be presenting on ACES and Resilience to the parents of preschoolers. One of the aspects we have debated is when to offer them the ACES and Resilience surveys. However, after reading https://www.acesconnection.com/blog/putting-resilience-and-resilience-surveys-under-the-microscope I am wondering what purpose it would ultimately serve (and what unintended consequences it may have) to give parents the surveys. It would be optional, and...
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Personal Touch Beats Technology for Parent-School Communication, Survey Finds [edweek.org]
By Jake Maher, Education Week, February 20, 2020 A new report from the Center for American Progress finds that personalization—not technology—is seen as the most important feature of good parent-school communication by key players in the public school community. CAP senior consultant Meg Benner and research associate Abby Quirk surveyed more than 900 parents who were broadly representative of the public school population, along with more than 400 teachers and more than 400 school leaders, to...
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Beyond the NFL: A New Plan to Treat Brain Injuries For Women Escaping Abuse [yesmagazine.org]
Kerri Walker has been in two relationships involving domestic violence. Like many survivors, she was hit repeatedly. She was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and even suffered an aneurysm. “So when I say my brain is special, it’s special,” she says. Over the years, Walker, 52, has made many adjustments, including moving from a shelter in Ohio to a new life in Arizona. “We all get forgetful the older we get,” she said. “But if you’ve had an injury and if you’ve had trauma in your...
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Chicago Special Screening of The Chicago Maternity Center Story May 23
On May 23 at 7 PM, Chicago Volunteer Doulas will present a special screening and panel discussion of The Chicago Maternity Center Story , an important documentary recently restored by Kartemquin Films. Birth center and home birth delivery for low risk women, doulas (trained labor support coaches) and breast-feeding support all help to optimize birth outcomes for mothers and babies, prevent re-traumatization of women and families, and set the stage for secure attachment relationships, which...
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Re: ACES/Resilience Surveys w/Parents
HI Melissa: I know it's WAY late and I apologize for not seeing your question earlier! While I don't favor screening of parents I'm all for sharing surveys with parents. I don't favor screening til the medical, insurance, and screening places doing screenings have addressed race, gender, class, disability, homophobia and basically all kinds of bias since we know those most impacted most with most risks for ACE-associated issues are poor, female, LBGTQ, of color, and struggling with emotional...
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Re: ACES/Resilience Surveys w/Parents
Thank you for your reply, Cissy! I appreciate the perspective you shared. What we ended up doing at the first evening of the event was sending the parents home with a folder that had the ACEs and Resilience surveys, in addition to some other brief documents about Resilience, Serve and Return, etc. On the second evening, we did ask parents to reflect on their experience if they had done the survey at home. I especially like the point you made about acknowledging that often, we don't...
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Re: ACES/Resilience Surveys w/Parents
Melissa: Thanks for the update. I think parent cafes and watching and then discussing movies is great. It's nice for someone to guide, lead and prompt with questions and make a comfy space. Once that happens, it seems parents (and everyone) is pretty eager to share. Did you feel like your event went well? It sounds like it! Cissy
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Re: ACES/Resilience Surveys w/Parents
Hi Cissy, Yes, we were pleased with the event! We had a snow day on the original day of Part 1 and rescheduled it for the evening of Part 2, and then shifted Part 2 to the following week. We ended up having only about 1/3 of the participants who had RSVP'd, but I think that was largely due to the rescheduling that had to happen. We're looking forward to making some changes and scheduling it earlier next year to hopefully avoid the snow
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I learned the impact of prolonged exposure to stress from my foster child [washingtonpost.com]
By Jenn O'Connor, The Washington Post, June 6, 2020 You know what stress is, right? You’re late for work, your car won’t start, gas costs more than you expected. We’ve all been there, and it’s not pleasant, that palm-sweating, heart-racing anxiety. Luckily, it’s not long-lasting — not toxic. What is toxic stress? It’s prolonged adversity and/or abuse — not having enough to eat or being exposed to violence. It’s the kind of stress that puts you on edge and keeps you there, day after day after...
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A Statement from the Center for Community Resilience
Being Anti-racist is the first step in taking steps to end racial trauma as an adverse childhood and adverse community experience. In the Building Community Resilience Networks and in the work of the Center for Community Resilience we are dedicated to confronting the root cause of racial trauma in our country and across the globe-- the belief in White supremacy that is empowered by structural racism to produce the outcome of White supremacy. This is the vicious cycle of American life. To...
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Why the dean of early childhood experts wants to get beyond the brain [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
By Ryan White, Center for Health Journalism, July 23, 2020 Harvard’s Jack Shonkoff, a luminary in the field of early childhood, has spent years showing that events in the earliest years of life have profound implications for how budding brains develop, and in turn, shape a child’s later potential at school and work. Now, Shonkoff says it’s time to connect the brain to the rest of the body. “The message now is to say that there is a revolution going on in molecular biology and genomics and in...
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“What Happened to You?” by Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey: a book that resonates with us in the PACEs world
What do PACEs Connection and “What Happened to You?”, the new book by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry, have in common? Almost everything. That’s my conclusion after I finished listening to the book on Audible and re-reading parts of it on Kindle. In the book, Winfrey, a w orld-class connector, journalist, entertainer, author, thought leader, actor, and philanthropist, teams up with her longtime friend Perry, a child psychiatrist, neuroscientist and principal of the neurosequential model of...
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Stress Health website (www.stresshealth.org)
Research shows that the right kind of support and care can mitigate the impact of toxic stress in children and help them bounce back. The Stress Health website from the Center for Youth Wellness shares many ways that parents can support a healthy stress response: sleep, nutrition, exercise, mental health, mindfulness and healthy relationships. These things help to decrease our stress hormones and inflammation for healthier brains and bodies. Stress Health is about learning how the stress...
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Perspectives on Early Relational Health Video Series [cssp.org]
The Perspectives on Early Relational Health Series from the Center for the Study of Social Policy brings together a diverse group of parents, pediatricians, researchers, and providers to share their perspectives on why Early Relational Health matters, and what they are doing to support and promote foundational early relationships. We hope these conversations inspire new insights and motivate you to join us in our collective movement to support healthy early relationships, so every child and...
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Activities Guide: Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills with Children from Infancy to Adolescence [Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University]
Executive function and self-regulation (EF/SR) skills provide critical supports for learning and development, and while we aren’t born with these skills, we are born with the potential to develop them through interactions and practice. Our activities guide offers a variety of age-appropriate activities and games to support and strengthen various components of EF/SR in children. Each chapter contains activities suitable for a different age group, ranging from 6-18 months to adolescents. The...
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Perspectives on Early Relational Health Series [cssp.org]
The Perspectives on Early Relational Health Series , a suite of videos from the Center for the Study of Social Policy, includes four sessions during which experts share their perspectives on the importance of foundational early relationships. Each session is between 15 and 25 minutes long, and the presenters include parents, pediatricians, researchers, providers, and other experts. The goal of the series to inspire new insights and support for the movement to promote early relationships so...
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Anti-Oppressive Approaches to Addressing ACEs Associated with Parental Substance Use
“While it is helpful to know which populations need additional support to address ACEs and build resilience among children, it is even more important to know why higher risk conditions exist and to address root causes of inequities that increase the risk of ACEs.” (Camacho, S; Henderson, S.C. 2022). Over the past three decades, research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has gained widespread recognition, catalyzing policies and programs, and mobilizing knowledge focused on applying a...